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Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Top Ten Tuesday | She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Ten Characters Who Are Fellow Book Nerds'; this includes characters who read, characters who write, characters who work in a bookstore... You get the idea.This will be my last TTT post for a few weeks, as I'm going on a sort-of hiatus to get some much needed writing done!

Oddly enough I did struggle with this list a little. I have a lot of books about readers on my shelves, but I haven't read a lot of them yet; Among Others by Jo Walton, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly are all books I still need to read.

While I often find myself reading about readers, I think writers have a tendency to gravitate towards readers, I also read a lot of books about people with other interests. As an avid reader I already know what it's like to be an avid reader, so I like to read about people who enjoy music and maths and science and food.

Anyway, in the end I actually ended up with eleven rather than ten. I tried to narrow it down, but I didn't want to cut any of these characters from my list!

So let's get the most obvious choice over with first...

Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling: Of course Hermione was going to be on this list, and I wanted to include her because she seems to read more nonfiction than fiction, particularly while she's at Hogwarts. I don't read about enough characters who enjoy reading history books and academic books, so I couldn't leave Hermione out!

Jo March from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: Jo reads and writes voraciously, and she's always been one of my favourite classic heroines because of it. The book can be a little sickly sweet at times but I love the March sisters, and I particularly love the 1994 adaptation starring Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon and Christian Bale!

Catherine Morland from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen:Northanger Abbey is a fairly recent read for me, and I loved Catherine's obsession with Gothic Literature. I ended up studying a lot of Gothic while I was at university, so it was fun to revisit so many of the tropes with Catherine. I'd love to think that if Catherine were to live in the 21st century she'd be a big SFF fan, dragging Henry Tilney to Comic Con so they can cosplay as Han and Leia.

Sebastian from Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Did you really think I was going to miss an opportunity to mention this book? You thought wrong! I fell in love with Meche and Sebastian when I read this book, and it was nice to see Meche as the science-minded character while Sebastian took up the role of book lover, as so often it's women who are portrayed as artsy and men who are portrayed as logical.

Dee from Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, and Stjepan Šejić: I think any introverted book-lover could relate to Dee who, while at a party, was much more interested in reading her book than being hit on.

Haroun from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie: If you haven't read this book then I highly recommend that you do, especially if you're a fan of retellings and books about books. Haroun learns to love stories all over again when he goes on an adventure to save the Sea of Stories, which is being poisoned and putting his father Rashid, a storyteller, out of business.

Matilda Wormwood from Matilda by Roald Dahl: Matilda is another character who just had to be on this list. I think Roald Dahl will always be remembered as one of the best children's authors of all time, and one of the reasons he was so brilliant was because he wrote for everyone. Not only is Matilda a fun story, but it's also a deeply hopeful story for the people in this world who, sadly, are born into families that just don't appreciate them.

Lirael from Lirael by Garth Nix: Another introverted bookworm, I first read Lirael when I was around fourteen and I've loved The Old Kingdom series ever since. Both Lirael and Sabriel are quite bookish, but Lirael is similar to Matilda in that books help her to feel less alone.

Dash from Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Really I could have used Dash and Lily for this, but I decided to go with Dash because, if I remember correctly, he liked to collect dictionaries. If that's not a book nerd then I don't know what is!

Maddy Whittier from Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon: When you're allergic to basically everything and you can't leave the house, you have a lot of time to read.

Mo Folchart from the Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke: There were so many characters I could have picked from this series for this topic, but I ended up going with Mo because he was one of my favourites. It certainly doesn't hurt that I picture him like Brendan Fraser in my head. (Yes, I know, the film adaptation was terrible, but Brendan Fraser is very pretty, okay?)

32 comments:

Ha, yes, I think Hermione will be on most people's lists this week. That is a GORGEOUS cover for Little Women. I'm not that fond of the book (I never read it as a kid and I HAD to read it for a course at Uni, and forced reading is never as good as what you pick on your own) but I'd probably buy it for the cover alone! :)

Hehe, YEP, so not surprised that I'm seeing Hermione on so many lists this week. (Including my own!) Oh, I actually have Lirael sitting on my shelf--so now I'm even more excited for that one now. I quite enjoyed the first in the series.

I forgot about Matilda :O great list. Believe it or not I started reading the old kingdom series with book 2, then 1, then 3 lol. As you do. I totally agree with what you said about Lirael though :D she's great!

Great list here and some of my favs, for sure. Woohoo, for our list matching with Lirael. I cannot believe how many I forgot though that I love and didn't include! And others that I couldn't really figure out a way to include because Blogger was being a brat for me last night.

Great choices! We have some overlap (Catherin Morland, Jo March) -- and I love that you included Dash & Lily (loved that book) and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Enjoy your time off from TTTs, and good luck with your writing!

Wow, great job!!! I wasn't able to participate today... I totally chickened out. I only came up with like two and decided maybe this week's topic wasn't for me. LOL I have the WORST memory when it comes to details in books, so I just couldn't do it. Major points for everyone who was able to pull this topic off today!! :)

Ooh, this is the second time I've seen Lirael come up - a good reminder to read it. (I've only read Sabriel, and that was a looooong time ago. Time for a re-read!)

I'd love to think that if Catherine were to live in the 21st century she'd be a big SFF fan, dragging Henry Tilney to Comic Con so they can cosplay as Han and Leia.

BAHAHAHAHA. Oh man. I do kinda wonder what genre Catherine'd be (I kind of wonder if she'd be into paranormal romance, for example) into but the mental image of her wanting to drag Henry to ComicCon is a great one.

If you've read Sabriel then I definitely recommend reading the other books in the series! I love Garth Nix for writing a fantasy series with two leading heroines who don't have a romance at the centre of their stories.

Yup, Hermione was an automatic choice for me as well this week ;) I never even thought of Jo though...d'oh! Oh and I have yet to meet Lirael, since I *just* read Sabriel recently but if she's bookish, I have a feeling me and her will get along fine :D Awesome selection here Jess^^ xx

Fabulous choices! I am just surprised that someone from Feed wasn't into reading ;) I KNEW Signal to Noise would make an appearance! Matilda is such a perfect choice. And Maddy, I LOVED Maddy (I am going to read your review in a minute!) I LOVE that cover of Little Women too!

Hahaha, am I so predictable? I did actually come very close to putting someone from the Newsflesh trilogy on this list, but I decided to give you all a break from my Newsflesh love. Just for the week. ;)